CVS Nightvision Camcorder

February 23, 2006 by 32 Comments

cvs nightvision

Our loyal reader [Everett] has hacked up a CVS single-use camcorder to use as a nightvision scope. This is his second prototype. The first one only had 4 cruddy IR LEDs from Radiohut and a front mounted battery pack. For the second one, he separated the batteries from the camera. He removed the IR filter from the CCD and added 8 higher quality IR LEDs. On the backside of the camera is the eyepiece from a Handycam. It keeps the the LCD screen from leaking light and has a lense to help the eye to focus on the screen. The LCD is to bright to use without adding a dimmer pot. The camera is mounted to a headlamp rig with the batteries on the backside of the head. It may not have the best image quality, but at $35 you can’t go wrong when it comes to nightvision fun.

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Hacking The Commodore 64 DTV Version 2

February 20, 2006 by 15 Comments

c64

The original C64 DTV was a joystick containing 30 games sold in 2004. It attracted hackers because it could be modified into a fully functioning console. The latest version of the chip is being sold inside a Radio Shack Hummer game. This version fixes bugs in the original and adds several features to improve memory access and CPU speed. Before you get started there are several modifications that need to be done to improve the video and audio quality of the system. Once these mods are complete you can start playing with the machine just like an original C64. Oh, the Hummer game will look a lot better too.

[thanks av1d]

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MSN TV Linux Cluster

February 12, 2006 by 23 Comments

msn cluster

I just saw this MSN TV Linux Cluster over on Engadget. The boxes have a 733mhz Celeron, 128MB RAM, 2 x USB, Ethernet, and a 64MB CF card for storage. That’s twice the RAM of an Xbox and with a node cost of $0.99 it makes a much more sensible and compact cluster. The only limit right now seems to be a 64MB capacity cap for the CF card.

You do need to build a level shifting serial cable to talk to it though. Microsoft included serial pins on the board, which is convenient. I think that a TTL to RS-232 level shifting box is becoming the second most useful device behind the bench power supply. You need to do serial level shifting whether you are talking to an NSLU, iPod, GP2X, or WRT54G. You might as well make the thing USB while you are at it. So, who wants to do the how-to?

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Video Card Used As A Digital TV Modulator

January 10, 2006 by 17 Comments

lena

DVB-T is a standard for broadcasting digital television over the air and is found in many countries outside of North America. This hack involves using a video card to generate the DVB-T signal. This project was inspired by Tempest for Eliza, which we covered recently. To pull this off you have to add some custom settings for an additional screen in your X server configuration. When you start up the server and switch to the new screen it will generate the proper signal. The signal strength is pretty weak though and the card has to be wired directly to the DVB-T set-top box. The box will display two different channels, each with a test image. The signal isn’t actually generated directly, but is a product of the VGA card’s DAC’s harmonics.

[thanks james]

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Using A TV Tuner As A High Speed ADC

November 8, 2005 by 33 Comments

tv tuner

The Bt878 chipset is fairly common on TV tuner cards. The chip has a built in analog to digital converter with a sample rate of 119kHz to 448kHz, well above the standard audio rate of 44kHz. The hardware has to be hacked a little to inject your signal since the chip is usually receiving audio from the turner. With some driver hacking this chip can be pushed to 896000 samples per second. Recent developments make things even easier with ALSA support.

[thanks rockarolla]

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How-To: Automatically Download And Convert TV For Your IPod

October 19, 2005 by 86 Comments

itunes
The good folks at Videora have recently released the Videora iPod Converter. Using this tool you can make almost any video iPod ready. They have a handy how-to for ripping and transcoding your own DVDs. Our goal is to automatically download TV using Bittorrent and convert it to an iPod friendly format saving ourselves $2.

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DIY Projector From A Pocket TV

May 6, 2005 by 24 Comments

diy projector tv

since DIY projectors are all the rage, we thought it’d be cool if you could make one for yourself. you know, when you have that urge to go out and show the public your artsy film work. well now it’s possible, cheap, and effective thanks to this DIY projector made from wood, a pocket tv, magnifying lens, and some other stuff. you’ll need one of those old school pocket TVs (yes you’ll need a color one if you want color silly) from the 1980s to get it goin, but after that it’s smooth sailing.

thanks [stewart]

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